Do higher-class individuals feel more entitled? The role of system-justifying belief

ABSTRACT

Sense of entitlement can be defined as a pervasive sense that one deserves more and is entitled to more than others. Two studies examined the relationship between social class and sense of entitlement and how this relationship is moderated by system-justifying belief (SJB) in China. In Study 1, we conducted a survey among adults (N = 669) with results showing that social class was positively correlated with sense of entitlement for those endorsing SJB, but negatively correlated with sense of entitlement for those opposing SJB. In Study 2, we conducted an experiment among undergraduates (N = 128) with both social class and SJB being primed and the results replicated the pattern: the positive effect of primed higher social class on pay entitlement existed only for those primed with high SJB, and was dampened for those primed with low SJB. Therefore, higher-class individuals do not necessarily feel more entitled, and SJB may play an important role in shaping their sense of entitlement.

KEYWORDS:

• Sense of entitlement
• social class
• system justification
• social justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/fd4ut/

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/fd4ut/

Notes

1. In our pre-analyses for Study 1 and Study 2, we also included gender in the model. The results showed that gender did not have any main or interactive effects documented by past research (e.g., O’Brien et al., 2012), and the patterns of findings were the same before and after controlling for gender as a covariate. Thus, gender was omitted from the analyses for both Study 1 and Study 2.

2. In the following hypothesis testing section, we still included all participants (N = 128).

3. This discrepancy between Study 1 and Study 2 as to the relationship between social class and sense of entitlement for individuals with low level of SJB is reasonable, because the relationship changes as a function of SJB, and both the samples and manipulations in our studies might have had impacts on the results.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 71971120).

Notes on contributors

Bu-Xiao Xu

Bu-Xiao Xu, is a doctoral candidate at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China. His research focuses on prosocial behavior, system justification, psychological reactance, and social change.

Shen-Long Yang

Shen-Long Yang, PhD, is an assistant professor at Institute of Social Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. His research focuses on system justification, psychological issues in social governance, and positive psychology.

Jing Li

Jing Li, PhD, is a faculty at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China. Her research focuses on materialism, psychology of social class, personality and cyberpsychology.

Ye Li

Ye Li, PhD, is a professor at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China. Her research mainly focuses on organizational behavior, cyberpsychology, culture and social cognition.

Yong-Yu Guo

Yong-Yu Guo, PhD, is a professor at School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, China. His research focuses on psychology of personality, social class, social issues, and social governance.